Salty Dog Seafood Grille & Bar — Restaurant in Boston

Went there last week, 8/6/13. We went in the back door first and no one was seated in the downstairs area so we were thinking this might be a bad sign. Then we realized on the other side of the restaurant it was outdoor seating, and given it was a beautiful day that's where we sat. We were looking for simple but fresh pub food and that is what we got. I ordered fish n chips and a crabcake appetizer, while my wife opted for a bowl of clam chowder. When I ordered the crabcake I asked the waitress if it was "jumbo lump" or not, and she didn't really know but thought it was. As soon as it was served I knew it was not jumbo lump. It was okay as crab cakes go, and had it not been Boston I would say the crab cake was actually pretty good. But with the bar set so high for quality jumbo lump crab cakes in the immediate area, I am surprised they don't serve jumbo lump. If you are looking for a crab cake life experience, this probably isn't the place. That was our only disappointment though. The rest was fantastic. The fish n chips was a hearty order, and lightly breaded. I can't stand the fish when it is coated in a thick batter that retains the oil until you pierce the breading. This fish was almost crumbly, very light breading, and not greasy at all. Some of the best fish n chips I've ever had. My wife's chowder was very good, and she is somewhat of a connoisseur of chowder so I took that as a plus. There was enough fish in the order for her to have two pieces and I was still stuffed at the end.

We had a great experience and the staff were very on top of things, constantly refilling my water and soda. It was a very pleasant lunchtime experience. I will say that we stuck to the items on the menu that appeared to be their strengths and didn't venture far from that. Kind of like the rule that you don't order spaghetti in a burger bar and vice versa. So not sure how some of their other dishes might fair but what we had was great, and we will...

This might be a double review because I came with friends and we were ALL in agreement about the service but it starts like this: open spots at the bar, not enough stools though so you’re standing. NOT very busy, more like it’s go time for the bartender but he wasn’t in the weeds by any means. Said bartender takes quiet awhile to get out drinks. Never acknowledged us to say “I’ll be with you guys in a minute” We order finally and get 2 of 3 drinks we ordered while he starts taking another order. I’m ALL about multi tasking so I’m like it’s cool but then it’s 2 of us with drinks and then the odd woman out with no drink for the next 10 minutes while he took the other order. Then we order some Shellfish as an app. (He doesn’t put the order in but we’ll talk about that later). So I’m standing there with my card out waiting for him to start my tab for a good amount of time. He doesn’t acknowledge us so we’re like ok guess it’s no credit card tab needed. So no seats at bar (even though there’s open space, there not enough bar stool to accommodate the guests.) so we sit at a table next to the bar. Waitress comes and says you can’t sit here it’s for people ordering food only and we’re all “we ordered food”. No go. She says we didn’t order from her so we can’t sit there at the table right next to the bar. Again, I get it, it’s her table and in her eyes we’re not going to tip her because our tab is at the bar. So we talk to the manager because we wanted to stay and SIT and eat and drink. Said manager was like “Annnnnd what am I supposed to do?” No help. So we cancel the shellfish and ask for tab to close (because no place to sit) and leave and said bartender printed our tab super fast cuz he’d never ordered our app to begin with and hence didn’t have to take the time to delete it from our tab on the register. (It had been 15 minutes since we ordered the oysters) so we leave. Thirsty. And...

Very disappointing. We planned our whole weekend around eating seafood in Boston and we chose here to go due to the Google pricing. When we arrived there was no outside seating due to the rain which was alright, but when we got a table inside and made our way in to the dinning room, there was very little seating and absolutely no cool air. It felt very suffocating to just sit there. We ordered the fishermen’s platter expecting to get sides and have our platter feed at least 2 people. Since we had to get our food to go, we ordered drinks and we couldn’t have any because they don’t offer to go drinks which is a ridiculous. Our fisherman’s “platter” to go was more like a plate of random seafood and it only included the fried seafood and nothing else. We had to order fries on the side on top of the already $40 spent on the platter. The “side of fries” we got was and I quote, 11 French fries. The rest of the platter they gave us was fried bland fish and a couple raw scallops which we had to throw away and a couple clams. The seafood is literally so bland and was raw. Despite the platter not coming with ANY side which is ridiculous, they for some reason gave us a random pile of raw and unseasoned plain cabbage? I seriously don’t understand that. After eating whatever seafood from the pile we could, the fish we got at the bottom ended up being thrown away too as it smelled of raw batter and kept falling apart. Overall I’m really disappointed in this establishment and food. My family was really looking forward to eating seafood and this being a highly recommended place. Will not be eating from here again and I’d advise to eating outside if...